The Maccabaean

IT IS as well for Zionists to understand what their leaders have asked of the Peace Conference and what difficulties have had to be overcome. The Zionist leaders did not ask for a Jewish State in Palestine.

a Jewish State in Palestine. They did not, partly because they knew they would not get it, and partly because they would have been highly embarrassed if they had got it. I have developed elsewhere in a pamphlet the considerations governing the problem, and I will not dwell upon them here. What the Zionist leaders did ask for was the possibility of reconstituting Palestine as the national home of the Jewish people, with the freedom of ultimate development into a Jewish State. For this there were necessary three different elements: the territorial, the political and the economic.

The Boundaries

The Zionist leaders have from the first pressed for an integral Palestine. The precise boundaries of an integral Palestine may in this or that detail be a subject for discussion and arrangement. But in general outline Palestine must on the south march with Egypt, on the north reach to the Lebanon, on the west be bordered by the Mediterranean, on the east approach the limits of the desert. The difficulties which the Zionist leaders had to face here sprang in part from rival claims and in part from secret treaties. Readers of THE MACCABAEAN may not be aware that, in the provisional administration set up when the Turks were expelled, Northern Galilee was put under French control, and all Trans-Jordania, together with a great wedge of southern Palestine, was put under Arab control. The explanation is that in 1916 the British Government had made a secret pact with the French, and later a secret pact with the King of the Hedjaz. These transactions conflicted with one another, and both involved the partition of Palestine. At the same time the French were putting forward pretensions not merely to a part but to the whole of Palestine, and were encouraging, if not indeed creating, an agitation for an "Integral Syria" stretching from the Taurus to Sinai.

In their efforts to rescue Palestine from this brutal diplomatic surgery the Zionist leaders were assisted by the justice of their case, by the sympathy of Great Britain, and by the insight of the Emir Feisal. The distinctive character, geographical, strategic and commercial, of Palestine, is so manifest that any attack upon it is manifestly naked appetite. The British Government had made the secret treaty of 1916 before it had appreciated the significance and the power of the Jewish national movement. One of the first to repent of the transaction was the late Sir Mark Sykes, one of its two chief authors. I may add here that the highest British military authorities—the soldier has a simplicity and directness of thinking not always allotted to the diplomat—have insisted upon the necessity of an integral Palestine and of

Mr. H. Sacher is on the editorial staff of the Manchester "Guardian," perhaps the most famous of England's liberal newspapers. In his Zionist views Mr. Sacher identifies himself with the philosophy of Achad Ha'am. He has been an advocate of Zionism of unusual lucidity, cogency and knowledge.

an integral Jewish Palestine. The Emir Feisal at an early stage entered into cordial relations with the Zionists. His chief interest is in Syria, in the rich region the backbone of which is formed by the illustrious cities Da-

mascus, Aleppo, Alexandretta. Here he comes into conflict with the French, who claim this very territory. It can be said that the boundaries of Palestine will be settled as soon as the political authority over Damascus, Aleppo and Alexandretta is determined. In any case Palestine must include all Galilee and stretch to the Lebanon. If the territory claimed by the Emir Feisal falls within the French sphere, then it is highly probable that the eastern boundary of Palestine will reach beyond the Hedjaz railway to the desert. The Hedjaz railway must be in hands friendly to Palestine.

Great Britain the Mandatory

On the political side the Zionist leaders early made up their mind to ask that some one power should have a mandate for the League of Nations for a Jewish Palestine, and that that power should be Great Britain. By taking the lead in associating Jewish nationalism with the League of Nations the Zionist leaders identified our cause with a progressive movement in the world's affairs, which is in peculiar sympathy with Hebrew thought and teaching. By demanding a single mandatory Power for a Jewish Palestine they sought to avert the very grave peril involved in a condominium. In choosing Great Britain as a mandatory for a Jewish Palestine they were selecting the Power that was the first to recognize the Jewish title, which was pledged to further a Jewish Palestine, and which, from the fact that it had conquered Palestine, was better placed than any other Power to realize a Jewish Palestine. These considerations were fortified by others of weight. Evolution into a self-governing commonwealth fits into the tradition of the British Empire, Great Britain has a larger experience of colonial development and a larger personnel available for it than any other State. The possibilities of utilizing Jewish civil servants are good. The economic connections accruing from a place in the British imperial system will be of very great value to the nascent Jewish Palestine.

The political judgment of the Zionist leader with regard to Palestine has not come without question. France was not disposed to yield up her pretensions in Palestine without discussion. There is a whole network of organizations, doubtless on stricter analysis a stage army, campaigning in France against both a Jewish Palestine and a British mandate. One could remark strange bedfellows; not only the concession hunter side by side with the clerical—that is a familiar association—but the Kalif and the Pope. In this connection a word may be said of the activities of Mr. Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India. In public and